s bad enough, but my bit's ten times
worse."

"I join issue there," cried Wilton sharply; "it can't be."

"Oh, can't it!" cried the American. "You don't know what it's took out
of me. Why, I'd have pitched the whole thing up a couple of years ago
if it hadn't been for you three here."

"What had we to do with it?" said Bourne sharply.

"Everything. I used to see you folk and these boys plodding along,
working like niggers, no matter how your crops turned out, and waiting
patiently for better times to come."

"Well, what of that?" said Wilton. "Of course we wanted to get on."

"So did I, squire, and seeing you all keep at it so when I wanted to
chuck up, I pitched into myself and called him--this chap, 'Thaniel
Griggs, you know--all the idle, lazy scallywags and loafers I could
think of, and made him--'Thaniel, you know--so ashamed of himself that
he worked harder than ever. `They've all cut their eye-teeth, Griggy,
my boy,' I said, `and they wouldn't keep on if there wasn't some good to
come out of it by and by,' and after that I worked away. But now you
all talk of giving up, and say you've proved that there's no good in the
place, what's the use of my niggering away by myself?"

"You'd sooner go on such a wild, harum-scarum search as this, eh?" said
the doctor, looking at the tall, sun-burnt man grimly.

"To be sure I would. There'd be some fun and adventure in it."

"And risk."

"Well, yes, neighbour; I don't expect it would be all honey. There'd be
some mustard and cayenne in it too."

"And danger of wasting your life as that poor fellow yonder did his."

"Some," said the American coolly. "You can't make fortunes without a
bit of a fight. I came here to this place to make mine, but there's no
stuff here to make it of. If we should find the gold-hills now, that
would be something like. The fortune's already made. All it wants is
for us to go and pack it up and bring it away."

"To find it first," said Ned's father bitterly.

"Nay, it's already found, parson. The poor old boy found it, and gave
the job over to the doctor here, along with those title-deeds."

"Which don't say where the land lies."

"Oh, never mind that. I boggled about it at first, and thought it was a
regular blind lead. But I don't now. Amurrykee isn't such a big place
as all that comes to. There's the gold somewhere, and we've got some
sort of a guide as well as the right to it. We're none of us so old
that we c